1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a door lock for motor vehicle doors and including a door retaining part provided with brake cams or brake ramps and fixedly secured to one of two door assembly parts, a door or door pillar, a braking and locking assembly cooperating with the door retaining part and fixedly secured to another of the two door assembly parts, the braking and locking assembly including a plurality of braking bodies cooperating with the brake cams or brake ramps, and braking and locking force-applying element arranged between the door retaining part and the braking and locking assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional door lock for motor vehicle doors, as a rule, includes a door retaining part, in particular, a door retaining rod and a braking and locking device which cooperates with the door retaining part. The braking and locking device has at least one braking body and a pressure spring for biasing the braking body against the door retaining part. The door retaining part usually, as discussed above, the door retaining rod is operatively connected with one of door assembly parts and is rotatable about an axis, which extends parallel to the axis of the door hinge. The braking and locking device is usually located in a retaining housing secured to another one of the door assembly parts. With the door lock described above, it is always necessary that the braking body and the biasing spring form a single unit mountable in the retaining housing. Because with the conventional construction of the door lock, the retaining housing should be adapted to the specific construction of a respective braking body and the specific shape of the biasing spring, it is impossible to make a door lock, which would meet the requirements of a particular application, from pre-fabricated structural components. Rather, for all conventional motor vehicle door locks, other than those in which cooperating with each other indexing segment and torsional spring are used, and independent of whether a door lock is formed integrally with a door hinge or separately from a door hinge, a separate housing is produced for each door lock even when only another cross-section of the braking body and another spring force of the biasing spring are necessary.
For a particular type of a motor vehicle door lock, one which is formed integrally with a door hinge, it was proposed to form the braking and locking bodies as rolling bodies rotatable about support axles, which extend perpendicular to the hinge axis, and cooperating with a retaining element which is fixedly secured to a hinge half in which the hinge pin extends with a running fit, with the retaining element being formed as at least particularly circular track concentric with respect to the hinge axis and being provided with index or detent marks in a form of axially extending indentations. The rolling bodies are biased into an engagement with the index marks by a spring supported against a free end of the hinge pin. The index marks are provided in an end surface of a flange forming the track. The described construction of a door lock results in a structure that has reduced dimensions, occupies less space, and can be economically produced. At the same time, the door lock door hinge assembly is characterized by a substantially noiseless operation. However, the drawback of the above-described construction consists in that with each change of the shape or the operation of one of the components of the door lock, a totally new construction of the door lock is required which at least in majority of cases, excludes the use of standardized parts or structural components. In all of the conventional and known constructions of door locks, a rather unfavorable tolerance pairing between corresponding elements of a door lock and, in particular between a retaining housing and elements located therein can be observed. An unfavorable tolerance pairing can result in that a door could not be retained in its exact predetermined braking and locking positions and/or with a sufficient braking and locking force.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a motor vehicle door lock that can be adapted to different operational requirements such as braking force, rising rate of the braking force, and the like.
Another object of the present invention is a door lock the manufacture of which is based on a unit assembly system according to which the door lock is produced form pre-fabricated structural components.